GREAT movie - don't be fooled by the low score

This movie is so bad you will occasionally find yourself making sure you aren't having a bad dream and Tom Hanks really did make this terrible movie.

On Rotten Tomatoes, this movie got a critic score of 34/100 and an audience score of 48/100. So getting higher than a 5.0 on IMDb is a mercy score.

SPOILERS

Hanks' character is all over the map. At first I thought he was playing Larry as a Forrest Gump/Low IQ kind of guy. Later he is sort of hip. Then he's clueless. Then he's romantic. Then he's bewildered again. That's the problem with directing yourself. No outside perspective.

The romance comes out of left field. There is NO indication that Larry is attracted to Mrs. Tainot, any more than any guy anyway. He never tells anyone that he is attracted to her. He never asks her about herself. He never tries to get close to her. Never tries to ask her out. Nothing. Then

There is NO indication that Mrs. Tainot is in any way attracted to Larry in anything other than a semi-friendly way. She seems to find him annoying in all of the scenes where they are together. In the scene where she kisses him while drunk, she is drunk out of NOWHERE. In the previous scenes she didn't act drunk. She seemed perfectly sober. He gave her a ride home on his scooter and there was no indication that she had been drinking. And then suddenly she's so drunk she makes a pass at him, having difficulty standing still even?

What was Tom Hanks thinking making this turkey? Did he really get no feedback from anyone who isn't a "Yes Man"?

Bad script
Bad acting
Bad directing
Bad editing

Funded by Canal Plus rather than an American studio, so you can tell no one sane wanted to touch it.

Stupidly written characters with bad direction.

Shame on Tom Hanks for wasting his and our time.

Oh, and what's with the idiotic title? Just a guy's name that has no bearing on his character or the plot? Could have been any first and last name. Meant so little, one of the character's calls him a different name for no apparent reason throughout the entire movie...

meh, it was OK. a nit doll at times but not terrible at all

6/10

When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...

It should have a 1.9.

I agree.

I usually try to read within the discussion boards to get a better grasp of some movies. I never go by the IMDb board as it rarely matches my preferences.

I thought it was a really cute movie. Tom Hanks was his charming self. I got a hoot out of the scooter gang!

I loved it, too. Maybe the people who don't like it are young. We're Baby Boomers and we absolutely loved it. Hey, we're people too!



You know what they say... no one with missing teeth wears an Armani suit.

Sad that people vote on movies and television shows they've never seen.

I liked the movie.

>> I thought that this movie was really sweet and romantic. Can't wait for the DVD! <<

Queeny, you and I speak the same language.

"She filled the blank with a tube of denture cream and a false sense of superiority."

My take on the movie is that it was potentially realistic. The problem with that, is that sometimes realism is boring.

Some have commented and criticized how the character of Larry was all over the place. Aren't most people? Larry is a 50+ year old dude trying to start over completely and get a fresh perspective and grip on life. That makes for a tremendous amount of imbalance because sometimes you'll have it together for some things, and other times you'll be completely clueless.

I thought that the movie was cute, but that's about the extent of it. It was light entertainment for me, but otherwise it was pretty milquetoast.

Good stories have certain elements - an opening, conflict, climax and resolution. The only real conflict in this movie was the curveballs that life can throw at you, so with such a weak conflict, there couldn't be much of a climax or resolution, so the whole thing wound up being pretty bland. Lightly entertaining, but nothing I would go out of my way to try to see again.

"My name is Gladiator"